Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny (14 page)

That was when I saw it. The letter that Abhi had written to me in blood was laid out on the centre table in the drawing room. Just a glance at it and I felt I had been jabbed hard in the stomach. I sucked in my breath, my heart beating at a furious pace. I swallowed and I opened my mouth and closed it. I did not know what to say. I was speechless. I was shocked that my parents had discovered it. I had never anticipated that. Earlier I had been careful about locking up my cupboard and carrying the key with me when I left home. But lately, I had become careless about that too. Getting a letter like this from a guy and then shamelessly holding on to it, was the ultimate sin a well brought up Indian girl could commit, in their books. To them, it was unforgivable that their daughter whom they trusted so much had done this. One part of me was terrified of their wrath. But another was also numb with the pain of seeing that letter again. It brought back all the memories of the time when I had seen the letter and first gone to his house. It reminded me of the afternoon that I had spent with him, in his house.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” My dad thundered.

“Is this what we sent you to college for?” My mother added.

“Who is this fellow? And what is this writing in blood? Bloody mad bastard. How dare he?” My dad was so angry that he was choking on his own words. He was shaking with rage. He could hardly speak.

“And have you written back to him, you shameless hussy?” my mom berated me..

I did not know what to say. Rage was stirring somewhere in me slowly but there was also a huge wave of sadness brewing. How could my father address him that way? How dare they go though my personal stuff? How could they rob me of my privacy like this and then question me? I was not a child anymore. I was 21 and I could even marry now and they would not be able to stop me.

He is not a mad bastard, dad. He is dead.
I wanted to say it but the words stuck somewhere in my throat and did not come out.

My mother looked at me and addressed my dad, “Look at her standing like that. Look at her insolence. She should hang her head in shame. Look at her attitude and her silence. Who the hell does she think she is?”

I still kept quiet. My silence aggravated her anger even more.

“Answer, you shameless whore,” she yelled as she shoved me hard. I stepped sideways by the impact of her push. “We did not bring you up for this. Where is this fellow? What is your relationship with him? Are you planning to get married?” she thundered.

My parents were both looking at me now, waiting for me to speak. How could I explain a thing like love to them? Their middle class values, their proper Indian upbringing and everything they stood for, had no place for trivialities like love and romance. If it happened, you pretended it didn't. You brushed it aside and moved on, as life was hard. You studied, you got a job and you got married to the person your parents chose for you. That is what they expected and that is what their way of life was. It was simple and direct. There was no way they would understand passion, love and emotions. There was simply no place for anything like that in their minds or lives.

“He is dead,” I finally managed to rasp.

“Very good if he is. He should rot,” she said. “Look at her talking back now after doing what she has. This is because you spoilt her and let her get away with everything. We should have been a bit more strict with her. Then we would not have to hear her talking back like this to her own parents,” she turned on my dad.

I did not have the courage to explain Abhi's death to them. My mother had presumed I was being discourteous and clammed up when I said that he was dead. I let her think so. It was easier than talking about it.

“Have you ever considered the consequences of keeping this letter?” asked my dad.

I was silent again, standing like a condemned prisoner.

“Is there anything more you have to tell us?” my mother asked.

“No,” I said.

“What about these letters then?” she said and that was when I noticed that they had all Vaibhav's letters as well. I had neatly filed them away date wise and the file was now on the sofa in my living room.

I cringed. I was certain they would have read them all as well.

“How many guys will you trap with your wily charms, you stupid little tramp?” My mother almost spat out. Her words cut deep, scooping out my deepest feelings of apprehension and exposing it threadbare.

Till now it had only been a vague feeling of uneasiness inside my head. But by speaking it aloud she had given it a concreteness. I knew she was not entirely correct. It was not as if I had actively pursued or wooed any of these guys. It was they who had pursued me. I had not trapped them in any way. In Abhi's case I had not even told him I loved him. The logical part of me said that I was not responsible in any way. But there was no escape from the
feelings
that I was to blame in some way. Feelings are powerful and logic was crushed under its weight. I was governed by them, not by logic. I was at their mercy and they were unrelenting, harsh and unforgiving.

Unwittingly my mother had struck at the very core of my self esteem and shattered it to pieces. I could not even pick up the bits. Almost immediately I was filled with a deep sense of shame, regret, guilt and hollowness. I felt sick.

“There is only one thing to do now,” said my dad. “I want you to promise me that you will stop all this letter writing nonsense. Fortunately, we are far away from Kerala. Nobody should come to know of this. If they do, our family name is gone. We are your parents. We have to think of your future. ”

I could not promise my dad anything. I did not even trust myself anymore—what could I promise him? I was silent.

They mistook my silence for acquiescence.

“Come here, there is something we must do,” said my dad.

I was too tired even to argue or ask what they had in mind.

I followed my parents to the kitchen balcony.

There was a bottle of kerosene in the corner, along with the household cleaning liquids. My mother generally put a capful of it in the water which the maid used to mop the house. It gave the floors a shine. But that was not what dad had in mind when he took the bottle. I was too dazed to even realise what he was doing.

In almost a flash he had poured some of it on the letters which he had taken out from the file. He threw them on the floor of the balcony. He then struck a match and the flames gobbled up the paper like a hungry monster devouring its prey. It was then that it struck me what he had done. But it was too late now. On top of the pile was Abhi's letter .I watched Abhi's bloodsoaked words going up in flames. The lump in my throat felt like it would explode. But I did not cry.

Though I did not shed a single tear, I felt defeated. I had had enough. I wanted to curl up and die. The sense of loss I felt when I saw the letters burn was oppressive. It felt like someone had heated up a hot iron rod and singed me again and again on the raw exposed skin.

“Everything will be fine now. Today onwards you will be a new person. Forget the past. It has gone”, my dad had said as I had walked away to my room. He believed it too. He felt I ought to let the past go. After all, I had come to Bombay with a dream to chase and would be armed with a management degree to help me climb the corporate ladder.

But that was not on my mind at that point in time, at all. I went to my room and lay down. I felt empty.

A huge, dark void was inside me now. It was like a phantom pain which amputees experience when a limb is cut off. The limb does not exist anymore but the pain they feel in that limb which no longer exists is very real. I did not know what to do to relieve the pain. I felt trapped in it. I wanted it to stop. I wanted no more of this agony. I curled up my fist as tightly as I could and the finger nails dug deep into the flesh of my palm. I did it again and again. The deeper my nails dug, the better I felt. Then I saw the paper cutting knife which I had bought some time back. I took it and made a small cut on the side of my wrist. I winced slightly as the blade cut the skin and a line of blood appeared. I felt better then. Now at least, the pain was real. I could bear this. It was not like the phantom pain which was terrifyingly unbearable. I made my way to the bathroom and opened the cabinet which had cotton and Dettol. I applied undiluted Dettol directly on the cut. It stung sharply and almost burnt. Oddly, I felt comforted.

My parents had no idea what I had just done. I felt happy that this was one thing they could do nothing about. Their reading of Abhi and Vaibhav's letters had made me feel so violated. This was my body and I could do what I wanted with it. It was a strange kind of defiance. It was a way of getting back at them for what they had done.

“Ha ha Ma, look at me now” I wanted to say. “What are you going to do about this, eh Ma?” I wanted to taunt. But fortunately I did nothing of the sort and lay down in my room and counted sleep.

Like before it did not come at all. Earlier I used to be comforted by the phantasmagorical creatures. But they had gone now. They had been replaced by blackness and a void. All I could hear now inside my head were agonising screams of the letters as they burnt. They were cacophonous. Each letter was screaming as it burnt, “save me, save me, please let me live”. But I was silent as I watched each one dying a slow painful death.

Dad had said that I would be a new person from that day. He had been right but not in a way that he foresaw.

Something inside me had died that day along with those letters. But I did not know what. I could not put a name to it. Perhaps it was a part of my soul. Or maybe it was a part of my destiny.

What it was, I couldn't tell.

15

Deeper down the bottomless pit

I
woke up that morning and I remember feeling afraid. It was a kind of fear that I had never known. It was a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach which was spreading slowly upwards, towards my throat. It felt like somebody had blindfolded me from behind, had his hands around my throat and was squeezing it tight. I felt afraid. Extremely afraid. There was no logical reason to it, really.

I walked to my window on the sixth floor and looked down. Office goers were leaving for work, the children were waiting for their school buses. I peeped into the windows of other apartments and saw women cooking, maids working, children getting ready to leave for school. I looked at the cars that were parked below and the drivers cleaning the cars of their employers. It was a day like any other—an ordinary day.

Except, I was terrified. The fear gripped me. There were no words to express it. It felt overwhelming. My heart was beating fast and I broke into a cold sweat. It was irrational, incomprehensible and terrifying. I wanted to shake it off, but I did not know what to shake off. One part of me tried to rationalise and speak to myself, but it was drowned in the massive panic that I was beginning to experience.

I went back, sat on my bed and took a few deep breaths. I closed my eyes. I put my arms around my feet and rocked back and forth, wanting to calm myself.

“It's okay. It's okay” I kept repeating to myself mentally. But the words seemed to have no effect. I felt fear rising to my throat like bile and could barely breathe.

I did not understand what was happening to me. All I knew was that I was terrified and there was no rationale or logic to it. It was nothing like I had ever experienced before.

I sat on my bed for about fifteen minutes and watched the clock ticking. I felt more and more afraid with each passing second. It felt like I was losing something. I could not put a name to it, but knew it had to be stopped. I felt helpless.

Finally I walked to the kitchen.

I saw my dad making a cup of tea. By now, I could barely breathe.

My face was ashen. My hands were cold.

“Daddy” I called out in a whisper. It was hoarse. My voice could barely be heard. My dad looked up in surprise. One look at me and he knew there was something wrong. Seriously wrong.

“Baby, what is the matter?” He asked. He sounded anxious, tense. He never called me baby before this. At least not that I remembered. It was too much for me to bear. Especially as it sounded so tender and it came after the castigation I had received just the previous evening.

I burst into tears. Uncontrollable sobs. Loud wails initially that gave way to a pitiable whimper. And then silent sobs.

My dad held me “What happened? What happened?” he kept repeating.

I had no idea what happened. Nothing had happened. Nothing that could be explained anyway.

“I am scared, Daddy” I could hear myself say. The voice seemed to belong to somebody else.

“Calm down. Whatever it is we will sort it out.” He said.

His words had no effect. By now my mother too had come into the kitchen.

“Is there something wrong at college?” she asked.

There was nothing wrong. Everything at college was indeed fine. I was doing exceedingly well in academics.

I shook my head and I was being entirely truthful, for once. I could not even tell them that I was afraid because the letters were burnt. It was really not because of that. The letters were gone and it was sadness and pain I felt. I had accepted that.

But this was pure fear that I was experiencing.

The fear was rising by the minute. I was in a state of panic.

“I am scared, ma. Ve ry scared.” I muttered, sounding like a lost child, a six year old.

My emotions were spiralling out of control. It seemed as though I was possessed. I was still sobbing internally.

“What are you scared of? Can you tell?” asked my mother.

I could not.

My parents did not know what to do. They took me to the living room and made me sit on the sofa. My mother got me a bottle of ice cold water and poured out a glass.

“Drink this.” she said.

I obeyed. I was breathing fast but had managed to stop sobbing.

Dad was pacing up and down.

“Maybe it is just taking time for her to adjust to the new course. MBA can be very demanding,” said my dad.

“But she has done so well in her first term. Her marks are great. And the other day too at her college fest, she won some contest.” retorted my mom.